Anne-Marie Slaughter interviewed
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtwi_KPBGLQ[/youtube]
Clarke to Cameron – Get Real
David Cameron thinks an IMF bailout for the UK is on the cards:
If we continue on Labour’s path of fiscal irresponsibility, at some point – and it could be very soon – the money will run out. Then you will see the return of what happened under Labour in the 1970s, including emergency cuts to many of the public services on which a progressive society depends.
Ken Clarke, his new minister, thinks such talk is unrealistic and irresponsible:
ANDREW MARR: So let’s return to the main matter then: the economy. Is it possible that this country would go bankrupt, would actually be back in the 1970s position of having to go cap in hand to the IMF?
KENNETH CLARKE: I don’t think it’s a realistic possibility, though I mean I’m as gloomy as most people. I just think 2009 is going to be a dreadful year. And actually I don’t want it to be. I think it’s very important to realise the constraints of a responsible Opposition.
Personally, I think the chances that the IMF will have any money left to rescue the UK are vanishingly small. Jules has much much more on this…
Who’ll bail out the IMF?
David Cameron yesterday warned that the UK could be forced to go cap in hand to the IMF, as it did in 1976 under chancellor Denis Healey. (This, by the way, at the launch of a new programme at Demos about ‘progressive conservatism’. Et tu, Demos?)
The question is, would the IMF have the cash. Click on more to read a story I recently wrote for my mag, www.emeafinance.com, which looks at the risk of the IMF running out of money in the next 18 months, and asks what the chances are of it receiving more funds from cash-rich G20 governments (answer: slim).
Buchanan’s mag calls me a Nazi and a racist!
Photo courtesy flickr user mackz
Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative magazine has taken issue with my posts on using cash incentives to prevent HIV infection. The idea of giving people money in return for not contracting sexually transmitted diseases, Freddy Gray writes, “has a strong whiff of the Third Reich,” since it rewards the fit and punishes the unhealthy (given Buchanan’s long history of defending former Nazis, you’d have thought they’d approve!).
He then describes me as a racist, for suggesting that “the only way to stop black people from fornicating recklessly is to offer them a cash reward” (their words, not mine). Aside from the strong sense that Gray is interpreting what I wrote in the light of his own prejudices, it’s a bit rich for Buchanan’s mag to call others racist.
After all, isn’t this the guy who once said of South Africa that there was nothing wrong with white rule of a black majority? And who thinks America took the wrong side in the Second World War and that it would have been better if the “courageous genius” (um, and murderous racist?) Hitler had won?
Mind you, at least Buchanan’s magazine doesn’t describe me as homophobic for suggesting ways of tackling AIDS. That, after all, is his area. As he has famously said, “homosexuals have declared war on nature,” and “AIDS is nature’s retribution for violating the laws of nature.”
Given the American Conservative’s rich tradition of tolerance and goodwill to all men, I don’t know whether to feel outraged or proud at being the object of its ire!
“African ownership”: an African critique
Last year, I wrote a couple of posts (here and here) warning of a rift between African countries and the West over how to administer peace and justice on the continent. That was coming out into the open over Darfur and Zimbabwe, forcing Western liberals to balance a commitment to “African ownership” with their desire to stay involved in African affairs. Now, a trenchant critique of “African solutions to African problems” rhetoric comes from Tsoeu Petlane, a South African scholar:
As we enter a New Year, we have to acknowledge that the “African solutions for African problems” approach has had some glaringly painful failures. The continuing crises in Somalia, in Zimbabwe, in Darfur and in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the surrounding Great Lakes region all demonstrate the weaknesses of the way “African solutions” have been implemented in 2008. These weaknesses must be addressed in 2009. The year ahead should be one of rethinking how Africa deals with problems in a manner that is effective and restores the continent’s image and initiative.
Petlane anatomizes the problem thus:
There are three key reasons for failure: an almost unquestioning adherence to protecting state sovereignty, dependency on forces outside the continent and lack of leadership. Together, these stifle innovation, limit the effectiveness of proposed solutions and alienate potential allies.
First, the continent’s endorsement of the leaders of collapsed or collapsing states such as Zimbabwe, Somalia and the DRC, far from promoting sovereignty, negates it.
Sovereignty resides in the people, who only delegate it to leaders. In a situation in which the expression of this sovereignty is denied the people, such as in Zimbabwe; where those entrusted with it are unable to exercise it practically, such as in the DRC; or where the institutions supporting it are in question, such as in Somalia, protecting a government makes no sense – it allows a regime to maintain a veneer of statehood only on the basis of recognition by others. Thinking beyond this paradigm is urgently needed.
Second, while African leaders appear united in calling for indigenous solutions, few have demonstrated a conceptual or practical commitment to the notion. Their initiatives and solutions have depended on Africa’s “partnership” with the nebulous “international community”. A major component of this “community” comprises the very same former colonists who, we claim, have (i) “created” Africa’s problems by colonising them, (ii) “interfered” in Africa’s internal affairs, (iii) shaped the international system to serve their own interests (in trade, economy and international relations), (iv) dictated values of good governance and economic performance that are “foreign” to Africans, and (v) “abandoned/marginalised” Africa by withdrawing aid and political support after the Cold War.
This kind of dependency – developing solutions on the basis of actions of others, and blaming them when things don’t work – points to our lack of good leadership.